Project Profile: Patient Decision Aid for Depression

PROJECT: Guide the development of an encounter-based decision aid for depression that can be seamlessly embedded into primary care clinics. The tool will facilitate routine depression screening while linking real-time decision support to patients who screen positive for depression.

METHODS:

Four focus groups (6-12 people each) including individuals with depression, members of the general public, and clinicians to inform the decision aid’s scope and identify facilitators and barriers to implementation

With about 16 million adults in the U.S. having at least one major depressive episode each year, depression carries with it enormous social, financial, and health-related costs. Individuals with depression are often not adequately engaged in treatment decision-making, which negatively affects their care.

Digitized decision aid tools, which can be embedded within clinical workflows, may help. This project is informed by previous work done by Paul Barr and his colleagues that led to a paper-based version of the tool, which was well-liked and readily accepted when reviewed by clinicians and patients.

“I think one of the strengths of this research approach, in addition to being scientifically sound, is it includes perspectives from patients and family members. That’s very encouraging because it seems like an approach that is more likely to deliver meaningful results to the people that it’s supposed to help.”

– Jim Matthews, patient partner

NEXT STEPS:

The project team are applying for additional funding through the National Institute of Mental Health, which will allow them to continue developing the tool and broaden the scope of their research to an online community.

The Community Health Hub was supported, in part, by The Dartmouth Clinical and Translational Science Institute (also known as SYNERGY), under award number UL1TR001086 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The content is solely the responsibility of the website creators and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.